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Where romance never ends and happiness abounds

Absolute Trust by Piper J. Drake

After multiple tours of duty, Brandon Forte returns to his hometown on a personal mission: to open a facility for military service dogs like Haydn, a German shepherd who’s seen his share of combat and loss. It also brings him back to Sophie Kim, a beacon of light in his life . . . and the one woman he can’t have. But Forte’s success means he’s made enemies in high places. Enemies who are now after Sophie . . .

When Forte enlisted and left without saying goodbye, Sophie did her best to move on. But with her first love back in town, looking sexier than ever, she’s constantly reminded of what they could have had. Then after he risks himself for her, Sophie realizes she’ll have to put her life in the hands of the man who broke her heart, knowing the danger -and the sparks between them- could consume them both.

I have a confession to make. I have multiple Piper J. Drake books and this is the first one I’ve read. And the fact that I enjoyed this book so much had me digging out all my other Piper J. Drake books so I can run back and read them ASAP.

As a new reader to this author, I was really impressed by this book. I thought that the author did a great job keeping the story moving along, all without getting too deep into one faction of the story vs another.

One great example of that is the past relationship between Sophie and Brandon. From the synopsis, we know Brandon left without saying goodbye. There is obviously a point in the story where our hero has to confront the choices he made, and our heroine has to confront what his choices mean in regards to her. I loved how this was done. Yes, it was mentioned a few times, but then the characters talk about it. It wasn’t done in a way that they kept putting off over and over, and then it led to unnecessary drama.

Because I am new to this author, I am not sure if she incorporates this into other stories or not. (I am assuming she does) But one thing I really appreciated in this story was that we see people of different races and nationalities. Its not like there is a random person thrown into the story either. Our heroine, Sophie, is Korean. I loved hearing about her family, their values, the foods she enjoyed. I really loved seeing that side of her shine through. As a person of color, I loved that this is in the story, but it never felt like it was trying to make some political or motivated point. These are just who the characters are.

If I had a criticism, it would be there was a bit much of different military verbiage and then the going back and forth using first names and last names. Only because I am not familiar with the entire cast of characters, it made it a bit confusing in a couple parts. This was minor though and not something that would deter me from this author.

I am really happy I finally got to have the time to read one of my Piper J. Drake books. I kept trying to put this book down (why do I need to live real life anyway?) but I couldn’t. I loved the characters, the romance scenes in this story were absolutely on point, and I loved the incorporation of a wide cast of characters: dogs, cats, and humans. Now I need to wrap this up so I can start reading “Extreme Honor” by this author.